


Stay With Me

by Lunedd



Series: The Darkest Hour [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: 8.10, Angst, Danny's POV, Hurt Danny "Danno" Williams, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pain, Protective Steve McGarrett, coda/extended scene, fear of suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 07:25:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13542555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunedd/pseuds/Lunedd
Summary: The world tilts in its axis when they lift him up, the pain suddenly so intense that Danny does scream now. It’s a hoarse and tortured sound, and Steve looks so guilty and pained himself that Danny wants to reach out. Then Steve is gone once again, and Danny starts to hate that. All he needs is Steve, Steve by his side, his presence towering over him, so why does he always leave?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-read by my wonderful NatalieRyan - all mistakes are mine, though  
> I blame this one also on her (that gets easier each time)! 
> 
> Spoilers for 8.10, if you haven't seen it yet. 
> 
>  
> 
> Of course, Hawaii Five-0 is not mine, I'm just playing with it :)

He’s down, the coldness of the linoleum covered floor seeping through his thin t-shirt into his body, making it numb, but not numb enough to erase the pain that burns in the right side of his chest. His brain is reeling from what happened only seconds ago — or was it minutes? _Shotshotshot, you’ve been shotshotshot,_ and now that he concentrates on it, his back is hurting no less than the front. Danny dips his chin down, tries to see, tries to locate the source, and there it is, a mockingly small hole in his white t-shirt where red color spreads with every blink of an eye — _not color, blood_ , the detective part of his brain concludes.

A voice, there is a frantic voice in his ear, high pitched with panic as he has never heard it before, and it takes him a second to realize that it is _Steve’s_ voice. Panic rises in him now, too, because if Steve is so scared, then it has to be bad, right? Danny wants to get up, to curl up, to escape the pain, but his hands are useless, bound by that damned zip tie the guy had ordered them to put on. He moans, and then Steve is gone, stepping over him like he already is a corpse on a crime scene. Danny wants to scream at him, to hold him back, because _stay with me_ is a need he has never known before, and it’s getting more and more urgent with every breath he tries to suck in.

 _Breath_. It hurts like hell to even think about that, but he needs it, he needs air, and moans again when that little bit of oxygen he succeeds to get into his lungs is by far not enough. His left heel scrabbles over the floor in search of support, but in vain. He hears the crashing of plates, forks, spoons, cups, but it doesn’t matter to him, nothing matters but _where is Steve_ , because how can he leave him when he’s dying?

He blinks, and suddenly Steve is back, his worried face directly in his focus. His hands tear open Danny’s t-shirt, and Danny can’t tear his eyes away from that face. It should be soothing that Steve is back, but Steve is still in panic and his hands move so fast they blur. Danny wants to escape, wants to finally get unconscious, but he knows reality is never like it is in the movies. You don’t just pass out because of a gunshot wound, you don’t pass out instantly from that pain. No, in fact, most of the times you just lie there and bleed and bleed, and eventually, when the blood loss becomes too severe, you graciously pass out.

_Grace…_

Tani’s voice startles him, and Danny opens eyes he can’t remember having closed before. He blinks, hasn’t Grace been with him a moment ago? But no, he’s still on his back in quarantine, Steve’s hands pressing down on his chest with adamant determination. Danny tries to grab them, to show Steve how _much this fucking hurts_ , and when did his hands get rid of the zip ties? He rolls his eyes in pain, noticing the shard of a plate next to Steve’s knee, together with the zip tie. He must have been unconscious while Steve cut it, but why did he come to again? Why already, and why can’t he stay oblivious to the world until this is all over?

There’s Tani’s voice again, and Steve is just as suddenly gone as he was back. _No…_ Danny isn’t sure he really said the word, but with his next blink Junior is in Steve’s place, pressing the white towel that starts to turn red from his own blood with even more pressure down on his chest. Danny moans again. He doesn’t want Junior, where is Steve? Steve’s the guy who always has a solution, who always knows what to do, almost like a real version of that MacGyver dude back in the 80s on TV. He tries to find out where Steve has disappeared and turns his head, although that makes the hole in his chest hurt even more, and he clenches his teeth together to not scream out loud. It’s not because he wants to be a hero and suffer in silence, but he knows from experience that loud screaming and bitching only saps the little energy that’s left in his body so much faster, and he already can’t breathe in properly.

The guy that shot him is staring back at him, his dead eyes starting to glaze over without the constant blinking of the lids to keep the eyeballs humid. There’s a hole in the left side of his head, mockingly similar to the one in Danny's chest. Why did he shoot him? Who is that guy?

Junior stammers out words that are meant to calm Danny down, but Danny doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want that “ _You’ll be fine in a second_ ” crap Junior has for him. He wants Steve, who doesn’t tell lies, just acts and _helps_. But Steve is a million miles away on the other side of the room, talking with someone — Tani? — Danny doesn’t care. He wants Steve; he _needs_ Steve, but all he gets is Junior, and that’s not nearly enough. He knows in that little sober and rational part of his brain that is always there, that he’s not fair to Junior, and that Junior most certainly is just as trained in battlefield medicine as Steve is. But still…

As if Steve would have heard his silent pleas, he’s kneeling at his side again. They turn him over, Junior and Steve, because of course they have to check if it is a through-and-through. It _hurtshurtshurts_ , and Danny’s eyes cling to Steve’s face like a drowning sailor clings to a lifebelt. Steve is talking to him, but Danny can’t really make out the words. “ _... punctured lung… on the table… monitor… keep you stable…_ ” All he can do is nod, the warmth of Steve’s hand on his neck seeping into his clammy skin and finally, finally calming him down a little bit.

The world tilts in its axis when they lift him up, the pain suddenly so intense that Danny does scream now. It’s a hoarse and tortured sound, and Steve looks so guilty and pained himself that Danny wants to reach out. Then Steve is gone once again, and Danny starts to hate that. All he needs is Steve, Steve by his side, his presence towering over him, so why does he always leave?

It’s getting harder now to breathe, his chest is constricting more and more with every breath he tries to suck in. Danny can hear his own voice slurring something. A cold, soft _thing_ is pressed on his face, and Danny’s eyes snap open again. It’s the mask of the shooter, the analytic part of his brain tells him; and this is sick in so many places that Danny wants to throw up. But it helps him breathe; the pressure on his chest is not going away, but the oxygen flooding his system is making his head clearer again.

Danny regrets this. He can feel Steve’s fingers on his chest, on the mask on his face, pressing it just as relentless down as the towel with the other hand — no — it’s not Steve, it’s Junior, and Danny hates that, too. Steve has left him again, and he struggles against the scary mask on his face and Junior's hands on his body, but to no avail. He blinks — and Steve is at his side. This is starting to get too confusing. Danny closes his eyes, willing the darkness to finally swallow him, but a sudden pain, a thousand times worse than before, makes him scream. Steve has pressed down with both hands on his chest, releasing him now, and this must be it, this must be the end, because he suddenly sees Charlie’s face, despite his closed eyes, his sweet little face turning older and older—

—and then his world goes black.


	2. Chapter 2

It is dark when he wakes up. He is lying in a bed, both arms on a blanket that is drawn up to his waist, not higher, just as he prefers it. For a moment he just blinks and stares at the — presumably white — ceiling of the room and tries to orientate.

_Bed._

_Blanket._

_Darkness._

A light pressure on his left index finger indicates the existence of a heart monitor, and now that he thinks about it, he can hear the faint _beep-beep_ of said monitor next to his bed. Yeah, right. He has been shot. And obviously Steve has done something crazy, totally batshit crazy to get them out of quarantine. Because — hasn’t there been a bomb? On the door? Danny remembers Tani’s calls about that. He blinks again. How much time has passed since those minutes? It had been late morning, and now it was definitely night. But was it the same day or the next already? Danny huffs in a small breath and winces when that stirs a distant pain in his right side. Yes. He has been shot. And, judging from the fuzziness in his head, the lightness his brain is floating in and the numb tingling in his limbs, he knows the doctors have given him the good stuff against the pain. Like, the _real good stuff_ that makes you smile like an idiot on dope in the middle of the night, despite the ever-constant annoying sting of a fresh wound.

“Hey.”

A soft voice to his left makes Danny realize that he is not alone in the room. Yeah, he’s on the _really very very good stuff_. He turns his head, only a tad, because _damn that hurts_ in his right side. It’s Steve who is next to him, now sitting up from a slumped position on a disturbingly comfortable looking cushioned chair and staring at him with an intensity that makes Danny’s belly go all warm and fuzzy, and that feeling has absolutely nothing to do with the drugs that flow in a constant slow stream into his system.

“Hey,” he rasps out in response and makes a face when that one word scratches his sore throat. He doesn’t remember it, and he’s glad about that, but they must have intubated him. Of course. What he does remember, though, is the difficulty to draw in a proper breath, and now that he thinks about it, he reflexively breathes in, a bit too deep and a bit too hasty. The pain in his throat and his right side and even _inside_ of him flares up again. Danny tears his eyes open in shock and fear of the pain he remembers all too well, too, and tenses up. The _beep-beep_ of the heart monitor grows in intensity, and then there is one of Steve’s ridiculous big hands, warm and tender and calming against the left side of his face and Steve’s voice is soaking into his fuzzy brain.

“Easy, easy, Danno, slow, shallow breaths, come on, buddy…”

Danny obeys, because this is _Steve_ , and after a short fight with his struggling lungs he calms down his sudden frantic heartbeat. He is soaked in sweat from that short struggle, and when Steve takes his hand away from Danny’s face, Danny whimpers automatically. The hand is back in an instant, a damp cloth in Steve’s fingers. It wipes the sweat away from Danny’s forehead, his cheeks, and leaves again, only to return after the split of a second to retake its place on his cheek. Danny wants to say so many things to Steve — about that guy in quarantine who shot him; he wants to ask how long he has been out, and where are Grace and Charlie? Are they okay? Did they see him, do they know what happened? Where are Tani and Junior; and didn’t he hear Lou when he was lying on the ground, bleeding out? What happened after he was shot, they lifted him on the very table they had had breakfast in the morning and played cards…

But all he manages to push out through dry, chapped lips and a throat that seems raw from inside like he has eaten glass, is “Stay with me.” And he hates himself for that, for this weakness and selfishness, because Steve looks like hell and should rest, too.

This seems to catch Steve off guard, and the thumb of his hand on Danny’s cheek is starting to rub a soothing circle on his temple. He leans in, making sure Danny can see him and gives him a small smile that is a little bit too strained on the edges to be reassuring. “Yeah, sure, Danno, whatever you want. I’m not leaving, I’ll stay, okay? Just go back to sleep. I’m here. I’m here.”

Danny gives him the ghost of a nod and follows Steve’s motions with his eyes when the other man settles in the chair next to his bed again. He doesn’t close his eyes deliberately, but when Steve leans back, Danny drifts of into a healing slumber.


End file.
